


It Comes in Waves

by Mikazuki_Nika



Series: The Love that Binds Us [1]
Category: Fate/Grand Order
Genre: Gen, I wrote this right after finishing Part One, Ritsuka's thoughts after coming home from the final singularity, Spoilers for the end of Part One, idk if it matches the timeline
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-02
Updated: 2019-09-02
Packaged: 2020-10-05 09:08:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,354
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20486384
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mikazuki_Nika/pseuds/Mikazuki_Nika
Summary: Human beings sometimes talk about the stages of grief as if they are some kind of linear timeline. But anyone who has experienced loss can say it more accurately.Grief comes in waves.OR, in which Fujimaru Ritsuka's thoughts after the Final Singularity are explored. Oneshot.





	It Comes in Waves

By all rights, each day should be easier than the last, but it hasn’t been like that at all. 

The first day was easy. I stared at that brilliant sky with Mash next to me and Da Vinci’s support at my back and felt hope nestle in my chest. I went back to my room later though, and finally, I cried. Great, heaving sobs, but the older you grow, the harder that kind of thing gets. It felt like I had forgotten how to cry the way I used to when I was a child. 

And then I stopped.

I could hear his voice. Oh so clearly, I could hear the disappointed tone he used whenever I landed myself into trouble. I could hear the way he used to say my name, and I was sure he would use that very same tone if he saw me crying so pathetically. But I’m an adult now - I know better than to wallow in grief. My job is to remember him with smiles and laughter because that’s how he’ll remember us all. At least… that’s what I told myself.

The next day, it seemed to hit. I understood that all I had been doing the day before was running away. Fooling myself into believing I was strong enough to handle the loss, and telling the others “he would really hate it if he saw us crying,” I waved off all concern with a bittersweet smile. But the second day, I found myself searching for answers. How? When? Why? I scoured the archives and found nothing satisfactory. 

And then came the doubt.

“Was he really happy…?”

It was like I was possessed. I couldn’t peel myself away from the records of his life and his accomplishments - everything I found was a piece of an imaginary puzzle I had created in my mind, and everyone around me was blind to the “truth.” 

_ “The first stage of grief is denial.” _

I knew that, of course, but anything that didn’t fit in my puzzle was unnecessary and so I turned my eyes away from it. I told myself I wasn’t denying anything, that the circumstances were too suspicious to ignore, and that they  _ had to  _ be hiding something.

On the fourth day, I was faced with irrefutable evidence, and just like that, my make-believe detective drama was over. Once again, I went through a round of faux acceptance - I laid my suspicions to rest and talked to Da Vinci, talked to Mash and the other staff members who had worked by his side, and let myself be comforted by the fact he was “at peace now.” 

Since then, the grief comes in waves. I don’t really know what I’m doing, I just try to live my life normally (well as “normal” as things can get in Chaldea). After all, we haven’t always been a part of each others’ lives. I was living my daily life just fine before I knew him, wasn’t I? But whenever I felt things were okay, a poisonous voice in the back of my mind would remind me, “Roman’s dead,” and I would feel myself floating away from reality and time. As if I were walking down one of Chaldea’s long, long corridors, and suddenly the lights were cut. I would look over my shoulder, into the thick darkness, and no one would be there.

That voice went away a few days later, but then the dreams came.

It was like my dreams were giving me the grief I couldn’t access in my waking life.

Every night, every night, someone died or everyone died. They were such miserable dreams. Even if the circumstances for the deaths were silly - like a crying boy at a French soiree back in Orleans whose tears magically killed other revelers - what came afterward  _ wasn’t.  _ The pleading to my Servants, my  _ friends,  _ asking for the truth. The sight of caskets and flowers. The sound of my own sobs, in the waking world, which pulled me out of my nightmares for only a moment. 

It wasn’t until I felt the coldness of tears on my nose that I would wake completely, everything inside me messed up. Relief at finally being able to pull myself out of the nightmares, sadness and pain at the torture my own mind was subjecting me to...

At first, I was able to just dismiss the dreams and go about my day normally. I once heard that some cultures see death in dreams as a sign of good luck for the person who "died," and I comforted myself like that. But after three nights of this, my energy was gone. I spent an entire morning rolled up in blankets and pillows on the floor, finally wallowing, finally choking under the sheer amount of emotion that swelled and ebbed.

I did a tiny bit of research. Apparently, there are several causes for recurring nightmares. Disorders like PTSD, however, were probably not my issue. The Chaldean medical staff would’ve caught that one, even without him around. Stress? Maybe. I was never good at figuring out when I was stressed and when I wasn’t. Anxiety and depression were also listed, but that’s an entire suitcase that should be thrown away instead of unpacked. But “refusal to acknowledge something in life” was painfully accurate, so of course, I ignored it. (It was advice from a not very credible website, so~)

The day I wallowed on the floor, I had to run out on a mission with Mash. Life goes on and all that. But I just couldn’t talk. I have a habit of retreating into myself at times like these. I only answered yes or no questions because I could use my head. Mash didn’t pressure me either, and I eventually got away with fooling everyone into thinking I was catching a cold and my voice was leaving me.

But then the next day that behavior seemed stupid to me and I was almost embarrassed at myself.

Again, I tried to swallow it down and accept that death is a natural part of life. I had seen so much in those Singularities, pushed gently at the back by so many people… I know life better than most. 

Maybe life really is meaningless if all that awaits, in the end, is death. But when I thought of everything he had done for me, about every moment we shared huddled together in the control room, or the care and warmth I received… I knew I couldn’t label his life as meaningless or insignificant. Maybe he, as Romani Archaman, didn’t go down in the books of history as a hero, the way Heroic Spirits do, or the way he did as the King of Mages.  Maybe not everyone will remember his name, not even a hundred years from now in this very organization. But I will. And Mash will. And Da Vinci will, and all of the people I met in the Singularities that had called him “cowardly” after hearing his voice across the comms… they might just beat the odds too.

Isn’t that good enough…? Living on in the hearts and memories of others - isn’t that good enough? Roman wouldn’t care about something like “the world” remembering anything about him, so why isn’t that enough for me too?

These questions and jumbled thoughts follow me, cling to me like a heavy cloak I can’t quite shrug off. But I don’t feel like untangling them. I’m not the philosophical type anyway, so what’s the point in that? Would I find some kind of magical answer if I do? Some kind of miraculous “cure” to my pain? No, it’s better just to let it fade away. 

It’ll get easier with time, I know that.

And the nightmares are surely just a phase. 

I might be a little scared to sleep at night, because I don’t know what I’ll see when I close my eyes, but that will eventually pass too. 

And then everything will go back to normal.

And I’ll make him proud, too, with who I’ve become and who I will be from now on.

Right?

**Author's Note:**

> I'm just projecting, don't mind me~


End file.
